The Attitude and Use of Faith Healing by People with Mental Disorders in Upper Egypt: A Community Survey

Objective: To provide reliable information about the frequency of use of faith healing (FH) in Upper Egypt and its relation to help seeking behavior and to identify the differences between users and non-users of faith healing, with respect to mental illness. Method: This is a cross-sectional study conducted in all Upper Egypt. It includes a random household assessment of 5191 adult males and females with age between 18 and 64 years. The short Arabic version of the Present State Examination 10th revision (PSE-10) was used to detect symptoms and establish the diagnosis. A sociodemographic questionnaire and a specially designed questionnaire to investigate the use of faith healing and the attribution of psychiatric symptoms/disorders were applied. Results: The prevalence of use of faith healers in the studied sample ranged between 2.6% to 13.2%. Help seeking tendency is generally directed towards primary health care services, relatives, „no one‟ and faith healers. FH users tend to attribute their mental symptoms to more factors than non-users. A substantial proportion (67.3%) of traditional healers‟ users suffers from mental symptoms or disorders (44.7% are cases, 22.6% subclinical conditions), while 32.7% of FH users are non-cases. Conclusion: Mentally disordered people have a considerable tendency toward use of faith healing, and believe in their abilities to improve their conditions. Behavior seeking tendency is generally directed towards primary health care services, relatives, „no one‟ and faith healers. Such results can be the foundation for mental health reforms and for future research in Egypt and in the Arab world.